10-year-old Nina has grown up loving her father’s invented stories of a talking hedgehog trying to find a job, but when her father is laid off from the factory at which he works she boldly takes matters into her own hands to pay him back. Nina and the Secret of the Hedgehog (2023) is an animated feature out of France, rich in charm and boasting a surprisingly sophisticated and mature approach. It is aimed at a juvenile audience, but refuses to talk beneath their level. It is wonderful stuff.

Readers may remember Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli’s 2010 animated film A Cat in Paris, which was a rare non-American nominee for a Best Animated Feature Oscar. It was an excellent and quite distinctive film, and the creative team have re-applied a similar aesthetic and tone with Nina. If this new film is not quite as satisfying as the earlier one, it is simply because it does not feel quite as fresh. When the work is this good, however, ‘more of the same’ is hardly a drawback.

Given the title and premise, there may be some expectations that Nina and the Secret of the Hedgehog will offer some kind of fantasy story. In truth, it tells an unexpectedly realistic story, albeit one accentuated by a child’s imagination, and less about hedgehogs than one might expect. That is not a problem: what there is of Nina’s imaginary hedgehog is beautifully conceived with a tip of the hat to old black-and-white animated shorts. The remainder of the film is in a deliberately abstract, almost pastel-shaded style. You can tell from a glance that the film is from the same directors as A Cat in Paris: it is good to see them maintain that film’s distinctiveness.

Strip away the design work and the occasional flights of fantasy, and Nina is at its heart a heist film. There is a treasure to be stolen – Nina (voiced in French by Loan Longchamp) believes the embezzled funds that caused her father’s workplace to collapse are hidden on the factory site – and a plan to be hatched. Her long-suffering best friend Mehdi (Keanu Peyran) is along for the ride as her accomplice, and in the grand tradition of all good heists films well-made plans go awry and improvisation is required. As with A Cat in Paris there is a little more peril for the leads than one might expect from a children’s film. That peril makes it a more entertaining and satisfying work.

The French dub of the film boasts some star talent, notably Audrey Tautou and Guillaume Canet as Nina’s parents. The English dub is much less accomplished, but does allow non-French viewers to enjoy the animation more directly. Serge Besset’s musical score is delightful.